The Merchant of Venice
by William Shakespeare

Publication date 2010-05-14
Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0Creative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics librivox, audio, shakespeare, venice, drama, comedy
LibriVox recording of The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice was probably written between 1596 and 1598, and was printed with the comedies in the First Folio of 1623. Bassanio, an impoverished gentleman, uses the credit of his friend, the merchant Antonio, to borrow money from a wealthy Jew, Shylock. Antonio pledges to pay Shylock a pound of flesh if he defaults on the loan, which Bassanio will use to woo a rich heiress, Portia. A subplot concerns the elopement of Shylock's daughter Jessica with a Christian, Bassanio's friend Lorenzo. In its focus on love and marriage, the play shares certain concerns with Shakespeare's other comedies. Yet its depiction of the tensions between Jews and Christians in early modern Venice - and its highly dramatic trial scene in Act 4 - create darker currents in the play. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

Cast:

Duke of Venice: Filippo Gioachin
Prince of Morocco: Mark F. Smith
Prince of Arragon: David Nicol
Antonio: David O'Connell
Bassanio: mb
Salarino: Laurie Anne Walden
Salanio: Rosalind Wills
Gratiano: David Leeson
Lorenzo: Aaron Elliott
Shylock: etk
Tubal: Carolyn Frances
Launcelot Gobbo: L. Lambert Lawson
Old Gobbo: David Lawrence
Leonardo: Laurie Anne Walden
Balthasar: David Lawrence
Stephano: Lucy Perry
Portia: Arielle Lipshaw
Nerissa: Megan Kunkel
Jessica: Elizabeth Klett
Clerk in court: Ernst Pattynama
Portia's servant: Joshua B. Christensen
Narrator: Dennis Sayers

Audio edited by: Elizabeth Klett

act 1 of the merchant of venice this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit librivox librivox.org

the merchant of venice by william shakespeare act one scene one venice a street enter antonio salorino and salano in sooth i know not why i am so sad it wearies me you say it wearies you but how i caught it found it or came by it what stuffed is made of whereof it is born i am to learn and such a want-wit sadness makes of me that i have much ado to know myself your mind is tossing on the ocean therefore your argosies with portly sail like senors and rich burgers on the flood or as it were the pageants of the sea do over pier the petty traffickers that curtsy to them do them reverence as they fly by them with their woven wings believe me sir had i such venture forth the better part of my affections would be with my hopes abroad i should be still plucking the grass to know where sits the wind peering in maps for ports and piers and roads and every object that might make me fear misfortune to my ventures out of doubt would make me sad my wind cooling my broth would blow me to an egg when i thought what harm a win too great might do at sea i should not see the sandy hourglass run but i should think of shallows and of flats and see my wealthy andrew docked in sand veiling her high top lower than her ribs to kiss her burial should i go to church and see the holy edifice of stone and not to think me straight of dangerous rocks which touching but my gentle vessel's side would scatter all her spices on the stream and rode the roaring waters with my silks and in a word but even now worth this and now worth nothing shall i have the thought to think on this and shall i lack the thought that such a thing the chance would make me sad but tell not me i know antonio is sad to think upon his merchandise believe me no i thank my fortune for it my ventures are not in one bottom trusted nor to one place nor is my whole estate upon the fortune of this present year therefore my merchandise makes me not sad why then you are in love fi fi not in love neither then let us say you are sad because you are not merry and where is easy for you to laugh and leap and say you are mary because you are not sad now by two-headed janus nature hath framed strange fellows in her time some that will evermore peep through their eyes and laugh like parrots at a bagpiper and others of such vinegar aspect that they'll not show their teeth in way of smile though nestor swear the jest be laughable enter bassanio lorenzo and graciano here comes bassanio your most noble kinsmen gratiano and lorenzo fare you well we leave you now with better company i would have stayed till i had made you merry if worthy or friends had not prevented me your worth is very dear in my regard i take it your own business calls on you and you embrace the occasion to depart good morrow my good lords good seniors both when should we laugh say when you grow exceedingly strange must it be so we'll make our leisures to attend on yours

my lord bassanio since you have found antonio we too will leave you but at dinner time i pray you have in mind where we must meet i will not fail you you look not well senor antonio you have too much respect upon the world they lose it that dubai it with much care believe me you are marvelously changed i hold the world but as the world gratiano a stage where every man must play a part and mine a sad one let me play the fool with mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come and let my liver rather heat with wine than my heart cool with mortifying groans why should a man whose blood is warm within sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice by being peevish i tell thee what antonio i love thee and tis my love that speaks there are a sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond and do a willful stillness entertain with purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom gravity profound conceit as who should say i am sir oracle and when i open my lips let no dog bark oh my antonio i do know of these that therefore only are reputed wise for saying nothing when i am very sure if they should speak would almost damn those ears which hearing them would call their brothers fools i'll tell thee more of this another time but fish not with this melancholy bait for this full gudgin this opinion come good lorenzo very well a while i'll end my exhortation after dinner well we will leave you then till dinner time i must be one of these same dumb wise men for graziano never lets me speak well keep me company but two years mo and thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue fare you well i'll grow a talker for this gear and thanks if faith for silence is only commendable in a neat tongue dried and a made not vendible accent gratiano and lorenzo is that anything now graciano speaks an infinite deal of nothing more than any man in all venice his reasons are as two grains of wheat hidden two bushels of chaff you shall seek them all day or you find them and when you have them they are not worth the search well tell me now what lady is the same to whom you swore a secret pilgrimage that you today promised to tell me of it is not unknown to you antonio how much i have disabled minus state by something showing a more swelling port than my faint means would grant continuance nor do i now make mon to be abridged from such a noble rate but my chief care is to come fairly off from the great debts where in my time something too prodigal hath left me gauged to you antonio i owe the most in money and in love and from your love i have a warranty to unburden all my plots and purposes how to get clear of all the debts i owe i pray you good bassanio let me know it and if it stand as you yourself still do within the eye of honor be assured my purse my person my extremist means lie all unlocked to your occasions in my school days when i had lost one shaft i shot his fellow of the selfsame flight the self same way with more advised watch to find the other fourth and by adventuring both i oft found both i urge this childhood proof because what follows is pure innocence i owe you much and like a willful youth that which i always lost but if you please to shoot another arrow that self-way which you did shoot the first i do not doubt as i will watch the aim or to find both or bring your ladder hazard back again and thankfully rest deader for the first you know me well and herein spend but time to whine about my love with circumstance and out of doubt you do me now more wrong in making question of my uttermost than if you had made waste of all i have then do but say to me what i should do that in your knowledge may by me be done and i am pressed unto it therefore speak in belmont is a lady richly left and she is fair and fairer than that word of wondrous virtues sometimes from her eyes i did receive fair speechless messages her name is portia nothing undervalued to cato's daughter brutus porsche nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth for the four winds blow in from every coast renowned suitors and her sunny locks hang on her temples like a golden fleece which makes her seat of belmont coca strand and many jason's coming quest of her oh my antonio had i but the means to hold a rival place with one of them i have a mind presages me such thrift that i should questionless be fortunate thou knowest that all my fortunes are at sea neither have i money nor commodity to raise a present some therefore go forth try what my credit can in venice do that shall be racked even to the uttermost to furnish the belmont to fair portia go presently inquire and so will i where money is and i no question make to have it of my trust or for my sake excellent

scene two belmont a room in porsche's house enter porsche and narissa by my truth narissa my little body is a weary of this great world you would be sweet madame if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are and yet for art i see they are as sick that survey with too much as they that starve with nothing it is no mean happiness therefore to be seated in the mean superfluity comes sooner by white hairs but competency lives lon